Eat breakfast at 7.11am to lose weight

IF you're trying to shift a few pounds, then the time you eat could be key to weight loss success.

Choose your meal times carefully and you'll make light work of shedding the pounds[GETTY]

A new survey has pinpointed the perfect time to eat by asking 1,000 slimmers for their recommendations.

Lee Smith, managing director of Forza Supplements, who carried out the survey, explained: "The key for many dieters is not how much they eat but when they do it.

"We found that the optimum times were 7.11am for breakfast, 12.38pm for lunch and 6.14pm for dinner but obviously no one is going to stick to those times rigidly.

"Most dieters recommended these meals be supplemented with low-fat snacks when you get hunger pangs in later morning or mid-afternoon.

The results showed that a convincing 84 per cent of dieters believed that sticking to specific meal times was crucial for slimming down.

Additionally 76 per cent said that breakfast was the most important meal of the day, since it helped to cut calories later in the day.

The survey pinpointed when is best to eat and when to avoid snacking [GETTY]

The most important message is not to skip meals and not to leave dinner too late

Lee Smith, managing director of Forza Supplements

Cutting out lunch or dinner is as bad as skipping breakfast too, as six out of 10 respondents said that skipping meals actually made losing weight more difficult.

The slimmers also agreed with the idea that eating dinner early can help with weight loss, as 67 per cent recommended eating before 7pm.

More than half of the dieters find that the hours between 6pm and 10pm is when they give in to their cravings, with 62 per cent admitting that snacking past 8pm in front of the television was the real killer.

Mr Smith said: "The results show that breakfast really is the most important meal of the day for successful dieters.

"Skipping it just makes you hungrier and more likely to over-indulge in later meals, causing a surge in blood sugar.

"What you need to do is ease your body into a more consistent blood-sugar pattern by eating three meals a day of between 400 and 600 calories.

Snacking in front of the TV has been the downfall of many diets [GETTY]

"The most important message is not to skip meals and not to leave dinner too late.

"Calories get burned up no matter when you eat them - but if you eat dinner late, you're not as likely to get rid of those calories before going to bed.

"What you don't burn off is more likely to be stored as fat, as you become less active towards the end of the day.

"Eating too close to bedtime increases your blood sugar and insulin, which makes it harder to sleep.

"Your last meal should be lightest of the day and should be eaten at least three hours before you go to sleep."